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BP rig workers Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine face manslaughter charges, accused of repeatedly disregarding abnormal high-pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble just before the blowout.

A file photo taken on on April 21, 2010, shows a U.S. Coast Guard handout image of fire boat response crews as they battle the blazing remnants of the BP-operated offshore oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, in the Gulf of Mexico. (HO / AFP)

By Michael KunzelmanThe Associated Press

Thu., Nov. 15, 2012

NEW ORLEANS—A day of reckoning arrived for BP on Thursday as the oil giant agreed to plead guilty to a raft of criminal charges and pay a record $4.5 billion in a settlement with the U.S. government over the deadly 2010 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Three BP employees were also charged, two of them with manslaughter.

The settlement and the indictments came two and a half years after the fiery drilling-rig explosion that killed 11 workers and set off the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The settlement includes nearly $1.3 billion in fines — the biggest criminal penalty in the United States’ history. As part of the deal, BP will plead guilty to charges involving the 11 deaths and lying to the U.S. Congress about how much oil was spewing from the blown-out well.

“We believe this resolution is in the best interest of BP and its shareholders,” said Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP chairman. “It removes two significant legal risks and allows us to vigorously defend the company against the remaining civil claims.”

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said the deaths and the oil spill “resulted from BP’s culture of privileging profit over prudence.”

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Separately, BP rig workers Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine were indicted on federal charges of manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter, accused of repeatedly disregarding abnormal high-pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble just before the blowout.

In addition, David Rainey, BP’s vice-president of exploration for the Gulf of Mexico at the time, was charged with obstruction of Congress and making false statements. Prosecutors said he withheld information that more oil was gushing from the well than he let on.

Rainey’s lawyers said the former executive did “absolutely nothing wrong.” And lawyers for the two rig workers accused the Justice Department of making scapegoats out of them.

“Bob was not an executive or high-level BP official. He was a dedicated rig worker who mourns his fallen co-workers every day,” Kaluza lawyers Shaun Clarke and David Gerger said in a statement. “No one should take any satisfaction in this indictment of an innocent man. This is not justice.”

The settlement, which is subject to approval by a federal judge, includes payments of nearly $2.4 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $350 million to the National Academy of Sciences and about $500 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC accused BP of misleading investors by low-balling the amount of crude that was spilling.

“This marks the largest single criminal fine and the largest total criminal resolution in the history of the United States,” Attorney General Eric Holder said at a news conference in New Orleans. He said much of the money will be used to restore the Gulf.

Holder said the criminal investigation is still going on. Before Thursday, the only person charged in the disaster was a former BP engineer who was arrested in April on obstruction of justice charges, accused of deleting text messages about the company’s handling of the spill.

Under the settlement with the U.S. government, BP will plead guilty to 11 felony counts of misconduct or neglect of a vessel’s officers, one felony count of obstruction of Congress and one misdemeanour count each under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Clean Water Act. The workers’ deaths were prosecuted under a federal law that protects seamen.

The largest previous corporate criminal penalty assessed by the Justice Department was a $1.2 billion fine against drug maker Pfizer in 2009.

Greenpeace blasted the settlement as a slap on the wrist.

“This fine amounts to a rounding error for a corporation the size of BP,” the environmental group said.

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